Yosemite work week: Jerry's pictures from July 16, 2004

On Friday, we walked a mile or so out to a gorgeous meadow, starting from Bridalveil campground off Glacier Point Road, to search for Ivesia, the white flower seen here. But get this - we (well, Brent, our NPS bontanist) found a population on the hard-pack path leading to the trailhead! This is big excitement, finding a new place where an endangered species has never been seen before.

Two of the volunteers are botanists and native plant specialists in their own right - Kate from Davis, and Jean from Cleveland, Ohio.

A closeup of our sleuths. They are keying out Ivesia.

A lily (?) in the reeds.

A splash of wildflower.

The well-known Blurry Purple Orcid.

Is it an invasive, exotic bull thistle, or the native thistle?

A golf ball on a stem! Or something.

Pretty in pink.

And again.

I don't think this is a clump of Ivesia, but I could be mistaken.

An expiring rain orchid?

Tall and blue. (All feedback welcome on actual names of plants!)

I love the juxtaposition of the gnarled wood and the withering flowers.

The fantastic meadow at the end of our trail. Pictures don't do it justice.

Another angle.

I want to call everything on a stalk a rain orchid. But this might be one, nestled up against a grizzled tree.

Volunteers combing the meadow for a little white flower with distinctively ribbed and curled leaves.

It is slow and careful work.

Yellow starburst! (I just make these names up.)

A sort of brown-eyed susan, to me.

Where the meadow meets the forest dark.

A little blue cornflower-imitator.

The meadow is boggy and swampy - in fact if you don't watch out, you can stumble in up to your knees. There are even little streams and places where the streams fall, as if to imitate the action of the grand waterfalls.

Group shot of the volunteers for weeding and rare plant spotting: Back row, left to right: Ann, Theresa, Belinda, Verle, Don, Noreen our fearless leader from NPS, Jerry. Front row, left to right: Rose, Barbara, Marianne, Kate and Jean.

And shortly thereafter, another shot.

A third attempt.

This fourth version is my favorite (since I actually look awake and smiling and looking at the camera.)